Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/-graphy (2nd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. we have a consensus now. Spartaz Humbug! 12:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

-graphy

AfDs for this article:
-graphy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Pure dictionary definition with no hope of making encyclopedia article

  • The article name is invalid; article names in encyclopedias are supposed to be nouns or verbs (and not even adjectives), so it violates WP:MOS, whereas affixes are valid articles in wiktionary.[1]
  • The topic is invalid as well, the topic is supposed to be an underlying concept and not purely a word or purely lexical- that's what dictionaries do, and do it far better than we can here.
  • The article contains a simple list of words that happen to match a particular lexical pattern- again, dictionaries do it much better, and are usually more complete as well.
  • There is a good wiktionary article that covers the same ground: wiktionary:-graphy, and a list of graphies that is linked from there.

This is a textbook case of Wikipedia is not a dictionary, this is a dictionary entry with no realistic chance of recovery. - (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is a proper glossary though. A glossary is used for a particular purpose, and are not simply chosen via lexical means, but this is just a grab-bag of words with a particular ending. There's no purpose for this article, it doesn't support another article or group of articles. It seems to me that it has the form of a glossary, but is still just a modified dictionary article.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This article is primarily a list of topics presented in the encyclopedia. Its purpose is navigation to "graphy" topics (see WP:LISTPURP). If a reader is interested in topics that end in "graphy", this list will help him find them. Wiktionary doesn't link to Wikipedia articles. The Transhumanist 17:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's a list linked only by a lexical element though; there seems to be no other commonality between these words.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:31, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The difference between a dictionary definition and an encyclopedia entry is to do with the nature of the article, and the form of the topic, not simply size. The wiktionary has many large entries, these are not encyclopedic. This topic is purely lexical, which is explicitly disclaimed in WP:NOTADICT. And it's not a disambiguation page either, since the articles linked to do not share the same name. Really, individual affixes do not do well in the wikipedia; in the wiktionary they slot right in, it has over 200 of them, and is far, far more comprehensive.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:16, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, you could consider making it into a glossary, the wikipedia does have them, but I'm not sure why you would want to really, it still doesn't seem to me to reach encyclopedic to do that.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this is enough to keep it. The glossary of philosophical isms is about words that are linked by an inner meaning and is a constructive idea that can be used to generate new isms. OTOH this is simply a lexical pattern that is used to construct an article; it's not that dissimilar to listing all the words starting with the letter 'k' or something. Doing that puts it squarely in the dictionary style. If the wikipedia covered the different types of graphies like writing and studies in separate articles, then it might makes sense in theory, but in practice, I'm sure that it would still not make the grade.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:51, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Really, with these types of articles being covered pretty well (and in future better still) by the wiktionary, they've become kind of pointless.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:55, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the wiktionary glossaries is that the listed links do not link to Wikipedia articles. So they are useless as Wikipedia navigation aids. As a list, this page is highly useful as part of Wikipedia's navigation system. The definitive annotations make it even more useful. The Transhumanist 00:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because it's useful is considered an incorrect argument at deletion reviews.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:44, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not if the usefulness is in disambiguating topics covered in the encyclopedia, like "graphy" articles, which can't be located via Wikipedia's search feature by typing in "graphy" (because the search engine does not report matches to parts of words). One of the main purposes of lists on Wikipedia is navigation, and this list does a very good job of that in an area where the search box fails. The Transhumanist 16:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why would someone search for a page that has a list of words that end in graphy in an encyclopedia? Joe Chill (talk) 16:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He wouldn't be searching for this page per se. If a reader was searching for "something-graphy", that is, for a graphy he could only remember the "graphy" part, he'd could type in "graphy", and he would find this page which would help him find the topic he was looking for. Or, if a person interested in photography wanted to explore other "graphies", he could type in "graphy" and would also find this page (it turns up at the top of the search results, because it redirects from "graphy", and because "graphy" is in the first sentence of the article). The Transhumanist 17:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is still a WP:USEFUL argument, but apart from the fact that that is bankrupt here, I can't imagine that people would look up words in an encyclopedia rather than a dictionary.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:55, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - the article has clearly grown beyond a dictionary definition to a list. If a reader knows the subject he is looking for is a "graphy", but he can't remember the rest of the name, this page may help him find it. The Transhumanist 16:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • If someone only knew the last part of the word, why would the person search for graphy in an encyclopedia? Joe Chill (talk) 16:55, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Because full-featured search engines would find it. The search feature of WP:WikEd finds search strings wherever they are, and so does the search feature of Firefox, even inside other terms. Wikipedia and Google are lagging way behind the state-of-the-art in search support. But not every user knows that, so they may assume they can find what they are looking for, and type it in. And since we can anticipate this shortfall of the search box and support these readers, we should. The Transhumanist 17:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The wikipedia isn't to do with names or words, it's to do with the properties of the things or concept. The wiktionary is explicitly to do with words, affixes etc. By all means transwiki it or something.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:10, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Wikipedia presents topics, and the means to find them. Navigation is one of the purposes of lists. See WP:LISTPURP. The Transhumanist 17:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • You renamed it as a glossary, not a list. A list may well do that, but a glossary is intended to help people that are reading something that may have lots of unusual words in it, and it assists them in their understanding. In this case, what the heck kind of weird-ass text would have large numbers of words ending in -graphy?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:49, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Transhumanist. Also, this list (glossary) is similar to -phil-. It has some definitions with a similar meaning, and some (Chemistry/physics) with tangentially related meaning. Also keep for navigational purposes, closest to a disambig page maybe.
    (Side-note: IF any of these lexical lists are to be transwikied (and for any that already have been), it would be very helpful to replace the deleted article here with a WP:Soft redirect to the new location.) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, if we accept the argument that you can make a glossary on any lexical elements then you can make a single article on rocket and add multiple dictionary definitions in there including the vegetable and the space launcher in one article; just rename it to glossary of x. You're just using it to try to avoid WP:NOTADICT, but I don't think it works like that; this isn't a glossary any more than glossary of rockets would be it's just a list of words ending in -graphy.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think you might be right. I just remembered the conclusions we had come to regarding "glossaries vs word lists" at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Glossaries#Scope_-_word_lists_vs_glossaries. No time to re-review (please do!), I'm back off on wikibreak. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And in the discussion that you point to in that post, Rfrisbie (RichardF) summed it up very well in favor of keeping these, even giving an example of a featured list that meets all of Wolfkeeper's criteria for deletion: List of English words containing Q not followed by U. It's a featured list, and therefore not "crap". If that list is not based on lexical factors, I don't know what is.
See Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 7#arbitrary section break inserted to aid editing 2.
The Transhumanist 02:42, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Uh huh. Tell me, why is every single reference in that article pointing at a dictionary????- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:09, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OMFG I just read the AFD and the FAR for that. Basically it survived both because a bunch of stupid people think that the best tool to play scrabble is a dictionary an encyclopedia. Yeah, that makes sense, in their bizarro world, which has no dictionaries, I'm sure.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Although the article's name and the the article's intro indicate that we're dealing with a dictionary term, the article also provides a list. The list is valuable and should not be deleted because of other problems with the article. --Pink Bull (talk) 03:23, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be more or less arguing for transwiki-ing it to the wiktionary; I'd accept a vote to move it there.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 06:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

((since its been updated further discussion about the articles utility after the change would be useful.in sufficnet discussion for a consensus given the changes so far Spartaz Humbug! 06:52, 29 July 2009 (UTC)))[reply]

  • Delete or soft redirect to Wiktionary, list of words that share some suffix, not a proper "glossary" topic. Kusma (talk) 11:32, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I would have closed this as "no consensus", but given that it's been relisted, I suppose I'll weigh in. In its original state, the article was a mere dictionary definition, and thus unsuitable for inclusion. However, it's now been converted into a more appropriate glossary, which I believe is suitable for inclusion. –Juliancolton | Talk 17:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep — I also thought it was a no consensus close before relisting. Keep per Juliancolton and the WP:HEYMANN improvement work done by The Transhumanist. It is now sufficiently more than a DICDEF and thus is a glossary article. Note that the title is now a proper article title: Glossary of graphies and that -graphy is now a REDIRECT to it. — Becksguy (talk) 17:39, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Graphies isn't even a word!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:22, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, who needs wiktionary when you can just create a wikipedia glossary for each and every dictionary entry in it? I'm not kidding; let's do it!!! Twenty different definitions for a single word? No problem- it's a glossary of that word!!!!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:22, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If an encyclopedic entry can be created for every single word, I'm fine with that. –Juliancolton | Talk 22:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep and fix. This is not a "textbook case of WP:DICT", it is a textbook case of an AfD submitted by somebody too lazy to think of ways to handle a difficult case. This could be a disambiguation page, or a redirect to a section, but it this would need editorial expertise. Submitting an AfD does not need editorial expertise. The question is, will Wikipedia benefit from -graphy being a redlink? I do not think so. The real question here is, what is the status of th stuff in Category:Glossaries? Are these articles? Do they all violate WP:DICT? We need a wider discussion of this and a more satisfactory solution than what we have now. This isn't something that can be solved in a bunch of isolated AfDs. If you really want to push this, you will need to AfD all of Category:Suffixes, since there is no conceivable reason to delete an article on the suffix "-graphy" while keeping articles on other suffixes. --dab (𒁳) 11:35, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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